After the resignation of Nitish Kumar, everyone’s eyes are on Chirag Paswan.
– Photo: Amar Ujala
Expansion
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has once again resigned from the post of Chief Minister of the Grand Alliance government. Now he is again preparing to form a government whose actual mandate was received in the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections. He will never forget the 2020 assembly elections, he has repeated this many times because Chirag Paswan played an important role in defeating JDU on about two dozen seats. Chirag Paswan, who refreshed that memory, will now be in front of Nitish, whether with or against him; This is the big question that has arisen. Nitish Kumar remained away from the Bharatiya Janata Party for about one and a half years and during this time, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan has come close to BJP President JP Nadda, Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Till four days ago, BJP had to distribute 40 seats of Bihar among Chirag Paswan, Pashupati Paras, Upendra Kushwaha, Jitan Ram Manjhi etc. Now that big player Nitish Kumar is with BJP, the problems of small parties are certain. For this reason, a discussion is rapidly emerging that Chirag will be given a strong place in the state government. Whether this happens or not, it will happen after JP Nadda reaches Patna today.
See the mathematics of seats in Lok Sabha
There are 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. BJP-JDU-LJP contested the Lok Sabha elections 2019 together. Then BJP-JDU had kept 17 seats each and Lok Janshakti Party was given six seats. The strike rate of BJP and LJP was 100 percent. JDU was defeated by Congress on one seat out of 17. The circumstances are different before the Lok Sabha elections 2024. Four days ago they were different. JDU was not together four days ago. Then the party of Chirag Paswan, son of former Union Minister late Ram Vilas Paswan, LJP (Ram Vilas), LJP (Rashtriya) of current Union Minister Pashupati Kumar Paras, Rashtriya Lok Janata Dal of former Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s party Hindustani Awami Morcha. Seculars were with us. Apart from the claims of both factions of LJP, other small parties without MPs were also waiting to participate in the Lok Sabha elections. Now with the arrival of JDU, Nitish Kumar claims a bigger stake, because 16 out of 39 NDA MPs elected last time are from JDU.
LJP is still zero in the assembly
On Sunday, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has submitted the letter of support of 128 MLAs to the Governor to form the new government. In this, 78 are from BJP, 45 from JDU, 4 from Hindustani Awami Morcha along with lone independent MLA. Meaning, the efforts of Rashtriya Janata Dal National President Lalu Prasad Yadav to bring Manjhi and independents together did not work. Even the number one leader of Congress, Rahul Gandhi, was named in this exercise. If these five MLAs had not come along, even the efforts to break JDU would have gone in vain, hence Lalu’s camp is silent. Well, on the other hand, RJD now has 19 MLAs from Congress and 16 from Left parties in addition to its 79 MLAs. The only MLA from Asaduddin Owaisi’s party will also remain in the opposition. This calculation shows that Chirag’s LJP is at zero in terms of MLAs. It is worth noting here that an LJP MLA had won the 2020 elections, but JDU took him with it. Kushwaha does not have a single MLA. There is no one from LJP even from Pashupati Paras camp. Now instead of waiting for the assembly elections, all of them would definitely like to participate in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections that are ahead.
